Joe Foy

In January, Joe Foy, campaigner for the non-profit group Wilderness Committee, was scrolling through a B.C. government mapping platform, looking at habitat for the endangered spotted owl, when he noticed something different. “Lo and behold — four cutblocks,” he said. The pending logging cutblocks were near the Fraser Canyon in southwest B.C., in a “mystery valley” largely unknown to Foy. Foy later bushwhacked into the valley with camping gear, a drone and a GoPro camera. He found a beautiful, intact old-growth Douglas fir and red cedar forest… The valley, called Teapot, contains habitat suitable for the northern spotted owl, a species in critical danger of becoming extinct in Canada following decades of industrial logging in its mature forest habitat. Further sleuthing by the Wilderness Committee revealed 448 additional logging cutblocks — overlapping fully or partially with spotted owl habitat — were recently approved by the B.C. government or are pending approval.